Week 11: Nov. 29 Study Questions Juhasz

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Week 11 Nov. 29 Study Questions Juhasz Phony
Definitions and Lerner, Troubling Taxonomies,
pp. 1-35
Juhasz

• 1. Why does the question of indexicality matter
  when we start to consider the satirical or
  parodic aspects of the faux documentary?
• 2. What are the differences between a fiction
  film and a fake documentary?
• 3. How can a fake documentary be productive in
  relation to documentary reception
• as well as production?
• 4. Why does Juhaszs definition of the fake
  documentary require discovery, and
• what do you think we should call it if it isnt
  found out?
• 5. Compare the critical potential (to make us
  think about documentary as constructed)
• of the fake documentary with that of what
  Nichols would call reflexive and Bruzzi would
  call performative.
• 1. What do you think are the most difficult
  problems Lerner believes Luhaszs definition of
  fake documentary poses for the hybrid
  documentary?
• 2. Why, according to Lerner, was it not possible
  for the parodic to arise in the silent era
  documentary?
• 3. What does Lerner mean by the tropes of
  observational or verite documentary and how is
  this different or not different from documentary
  style?
• 4. Lerner starts to classify films that trope
  documentary as those that remake other films,
  those that set off hoaxes and those that use
  documentary sensationally as on the border and
  therefore not exactly documentary or fiction or
  fake. Evaluate his categories at this stage,
  proposing alternative terminology.

Lerner
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Week 12 Dec. 6 Study Questions Lebow, Faking
What? Juhasz and Lerner, As a Finale
Lebow

• 1. Explain what Lebow means when she says that
  the question of faking is moot because
  documentary is already a fake of sorts.
• 2. Why does Lebow prefer mockumentary to fake
  doc and which term do you think does the most to
  challenge the credibility of documentary work?
• 3. What does she mean by the mockumentary as
  propping up documentary and why do you think it
  would it need propping up at this time in its
  evolution?
• 4. Why should we be concerned that documentarys
  verisimilitude should be subject to
• highly conservative, normative codes of
  reality? Or, when does documentarys this is
  so mean this is normal therefore everything
  else is abnormal?
• 5. Lebow is willing to concede that there might
  be one thing that could be called subversive
  about the mockumentary. What is this?
• 6. Give examples of the kinds of things
  contemporary documentary makers might say
• that could be understood as the rhetoric of the
  unmediated real. Why do makers continue to use
  this language in reference to their practice?

Juhasz and Lerner

• Explain how it would be possible for one student
  documentary to
• throw into crisis the entire proceedings of an
  academic conference on
• Fake Documentary. Which categories and what
  definitions are challenged?

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Final Project Presentation Due in class Dec. 13
Final Paper Due Dec. 20, 200 pm - 513 Dodge
Hall (office)

• Directions Read Carefully Lioult, Framing the
  Unexpected ejumpcut.org
• Shoot a still or moving (preferably moving) 30
  sec. image that exemplifies one of Lioults 3
  kinds of encounter with the event before the
  camera
• Type I Non-Fiction highly flexible and
  relatively unplanned
• Type II Non-Fiction relatively planned,
  controlled, constrained
• Type III Framing the Unexpected Combination
  of I II
• facilitate the unforeseen but do not exactly
  control the events
• Class Screening/Discussion Plan Clip uploaded to
  YouTube
• Username Password
• Your Presentation 30 sec. clip screened
• Class Discussion 2 min. Focus on difference
  between audience perception and documentary maker
  intention.
• Your Presentation 2 min. explanation of your
  documentary practice
• Final Paper 5 pg. double-spaced written
  analysis of your presentation comparing it to
  those of others in the class, evaluating the
  experiment vis a vis our evolving understanding
  of the definition of documentary as it relates to
  the makers practice. Return to your definition
  from the first short paper you wrote. Explain how
  thinking about the faux doc or the fake
  documentary changed or didnt change your
  thinking about how to define documentary.
• MLA-style in text citation Works Cited at end
  from course readings only.